be less perfect than satisfaction, and it is in fact the stronger,--it
gives birth to wit. And, indeed, they were perfectly happy; for
enjoyment must always take something off happiness. Married in heaven
alone, these two lovers admired each other in their purest aspect,
--that of two souls incandescent, and united in celestial light,
radiant to the eyes that faith has touched; and, above all, filled
with the rapture which the brush of a Raphael, a Titian, a Murillo,
has depicted, and which those who have ever known it, taste again as
they gaze at those paintings. Do not such peerless spirits scorn the
coarser joys lavished by the Sicilian singer--the material expression
of that angelic union?

These noble thoughts were in the Prince's mind as he reposed in
heavenly calm on Massimilla's cool, soft, white bosom, under the
gentle radiance of her eyes veiled by long, bright lashes; and he gave
himself up to this dream of an ideal orgy. At such a moment,
Massimilla was as one of the Virgin visions seen in dreams, which
vanish at cock-crow, but whom we recognize when we find them again in
their realm of glory,--in the works of some great painters of Heaven.

In the evening the lovers went to the theatre. This is the way of
Italian life: love in the morning; music in the evening; the night for
sleep. How far preferable is this existence to that of a country where
every one expends his lungs and strength in politics, without
contributing any more, single-minded, to the progress of affairs than
a grain of sand can make a cloud of dust. Liberty, in those strange
lands, consists in the right to squabble over public concerns, to take
care of oneself, to waste time in patriotic undertakings each more
futile than the last, inasmuch as they all weaken that noble, holy
self-concern which is the parent of all great human achievement. At